The Herbarium of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences was established as a separate entity (“Unique Scientific Facility” (UNU)”) in 2017. Yet, the Herbarium foundation date de facto was 1934, when staff of the 1931‑founded Kivach Strict Nature Reserve, which was then part of the Karelian Scientific Research Institute (predecessor of the Karelian Research Centre), began to study flora and vegetation and collect plants and fungi in the reserve. After World War II, the collection was growing rapidly, mainly through the efforts of M. L. Ramenskaya, and reached a size of about 26 000 specimens. However, having been plagued as “useless”, it was transferred to the Petrozavodsk State University in 1964, and there it remains until today. In the following decades, independent collections were formed at the Institute of Biology, Northern Water Problems Institute and Forest Research Institute, which were incorporated at the beginning of the 21st century, so that since 2010 the Herbarium of the Karelian Research Centre has been listed in Index Herbariorum under the acronym PTZ. The Herbarium now occupies two rooms totaling about 70 sq. m. Currently, about 65 000 specimens are deposited in the Herbarium. New accessions amount to 1000–1500 specimens each year. Most of the specimens (ca. 85 %) come from Karelia, approximately 2500 specimens
were collected in each of the regions adjacent to Karelia – the Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Murmansk Regions. The herbarium stores basic information about the flora of many existing and planned protected areas of Karelia and adjacent regions. The type material is represented by the isotypes of Arctopoa petrovskyi Prob., Hedysarum sultanovae Lazkov, and Viola × viatkensis Vl. V. Nikitin, and topotypes of Erigeron decoloratus H. Lindb., Draba cinerea Adams var. ladogensis H. lindb., and Minuartia perdita Dvořáková.